James Howard Woods (born April 18, 1947) is an American actor, producer and voice artist. After his first Golden Globe nomination for a breakthrough role in The Onion Field (1979), Woods starred in Once Upon a Time in America, the Oliver Stone films Salvador and Nixon, Ghosts of Mississippi, and in the legal series Shark. He has won three Emmy Awards â€" for television movies Promise and My Name Is Bill W., and for the animated series Hercules. He has been nominated twice for an Academy Award. His voice work has been heard in the animated series The Simpsons, Family Guy, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and in films Stuart Little 2 (as Falcon) and Disney's Hercules (as Hades).
Early life
Woods was born in Vernal, Utah. His father, Gail Peyton Woods, was an army intelligence officer who died in 1960 after routine surgery. His mother, Martha A. (née Smith), operated a pre-school after her husband's death and later married Thomas E. Dixon. Woods grew up in Warwick, Rhode Island, where he attended Pilgrim High School. He is of part Irish descent and was raised Catholic, briefly serving as an altar boy.
Woods ultimately chose to pursue his undergraduate studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he majored in political science (though he originally planned on a career as an eye surgeon). While at MIT, Woods pledged to Theta Delta Chi Fraternity. He was also an active member of the student theatre group "Dramashop" where he both acted in and directed a number of plays. In order to pursue a career in acting, he dropped out of MIT in 1969 before his graduation. Woods has said that he became an actor thanks to Tim Affleck (father of actor Ben Affleck), who was a stage manager at the Theatre Company of Boston while Woods was a student there.
Career
Theater
Woods appeared in 36 plays before making his Broadway debut in 1970 at the Lyceum Theatre, in the first US production of Frank McMahon's Borstal Boy. He got the part by pretending he was British. He returned to Broadway the following year to portray David Darst in Daniel Berrigan's The Trial of the Catonsville Nine. In 1971, he played Bob Rettie in the American premiere of Michael Weller's Moonchildren at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. The production moved to Broadway the following year and Woods won a Theatre World Award for his performance. He returned to Broadway in 1973 to portray Steven Cooper in the original production of Jean Kerr's Finishing Touches.
Film and television
A prominent Hollywood character actor, Woods has appeared in over 130 films and television series as of 2013, beginning with his first television appearance All the Way Home in 1971 and his film debut The Visitors in 1972. He is known for his dark, intense characters and villains. Early examples include his portrayals of a sadistic murderer in 1979's The Onion Field, and of serial killer Carl Panzram in 1994's Killer: A Journal of Murder. He appeared in an episode of The Rockford Files, playing a son whose parents were murdered. He has been twice nominated for an Academy Award: first, for Best Actor, for playing a journalist chronicling events in El Salvador in the early Oliver Stone film Salvador (1986), and again in 1996, for Best Supporting Actor, for his performance as real-life white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith in drama Ghosts of Mississippi. One of his favorite film roles is Max, the domineering gangster, in Sergio Leone's epic Once Upon a Time in America (1984). In 1995, Woods took the role of pimp Lester Diamond in Martin Scorsese's Casino. That same year, he portrayed H. R. Haldeman in Nixon, the biopic of Richard M. Nixon, directed by Oliver Stone. In one of his most prominent television roles, Woods starred in the CBS legal drama series Shark, which ran for two seasons between 2006 and 2008. He played an infamous defense lawyer who, after growing disillusioned when his client commits a murder, becomes a successful prosecutor with the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office.
He was briefly considered for the role of the Joker by Tim Burton and Sam Hamm for Batman. Hamm recalls that he and Burton thought, "James Woods would be good and wouldn't need any makeup, which would save a couple of hours' work every morning." The role ended up going to Jack Nicholson. Quentin Tarantino wrote a part in Reservoir Dogs with Woods in mind, but Woods' agent rejected the script without showing it to the actor. When Woods learned of this some time later, he fired his agents (CAA), replacing them with ICM. Woods was also considered for the part of Donald Kimball in American Psycho, but he turned it down. Eventually, the part was given to Willem Dafoe. In 2006, Woods starred in End Game. He makes a cameo appearance as himself in the first episode of the third season of Entourage. In 2011, Woods appeared as Richard S. Fuld, Jr., Chairman and CEO of Lehman Brothers, in HBO's Too Big to Fail, for which he gained an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Mini-series or Movie.
Voice work
Woods has lent his voice talents to many animated television shows and feature films. He garnered critical praise for his voice work as Hades in the 1997 Disney film Hercules and he won a Daytime Emmy Award in 2000 for the role in the follow-up television series (for the 1999 season). He also voiced Phillium Benedict, the twisted former headmaster who attempts to abolish summer vacation in the 2001 film, Recess: School's Out. He also appeared as a fictional version of himself in the episode of The Simpsons entitled "Homer and Apu" and in seven episodes of Family Guy, which is set in Woods's home state of Rhode Island. Other references in Family Guy include the local high school, James Woods High School, and a forest named James Woods briefly mentioned in "The Fat Guy Strangler". In 2004, Woods voiced Jallak in the animated film Ark and Mike Toreno in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. He was also in Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.
Personal life
During a press interview for Kingdom Hearts II, Woods noted that he is an avid video game player. He is an active dealer of antiques in Rhode Island. Some of his favorite activities are playing golf and cooking.
Poker
Woods is an avid poker player, playing in cash games and many tournaments. He played in the WPT's Hollywood Home Game series in 2004 for the American Stroke Association charity. As of 2013, he has to his credit 22 major event finishes, including two 2nd place, a 3rd place, and a 24th place finish (of 692) at the 2006 L.A. Poker Classic $10K final event, paying $40K. Living part-time in the northeast, while not filming, he plays many tournaments at Foxwoods Casino in eastern CT throughout the year.
Lawsuits
In 1988, Woods sued Sean Young for $2 million, accusing her of stalking him after they appeared together in the movie The Boost. Young later countered that he had overreacted after she had spurned his advances on set. The suit was settled out of court in August 1989. On July 26, 2006, Woods' younger brother, Michael Jeffrey Woods, died from cardiac arrest at the age of 49. Woods sued Kent Hospital in Warwick, Rhode Island, alleging negligence. The suit was settled in 2009.
Activism
Politics
Woods was a vocal supporter of former U.S. President George W. Bush and the Iraq War, thoughâ€"as of 2003â€"he was still a registered Democrat. He is a supporter of former Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani. Woods lobbied hard to play Giuliani in the biopic Rudy: The Rudy Giuliani Story, and considers the role one of the favorites of his career. In 2008, Woods appeared in David Zucker's comedy An American Carol (presented from a conservative-leaning perspective), along with active Republican actors Kelsey Grammer and Kevin Farley. Woods's name was in an advertisement in the Los Angeles Times (August 17, 2006) that condemned Hamas and Hezbollah and supported Israel in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict. Woods endorsed John McCain and Mitt Romney for President in 2008 and 2012, respectively.
9/11
In late August 2001, Woods was on a flight from Boston to Los Angeles. On the flight he noticed four men near him acting suspiciously. He said that they never drank anything, ordered food service or talked to anybody. They were just whispering to each other. Woods reported his suspicions to the co-pilot in flight, and he claimed that those concerns were passed on to the FAA. On the evening of September 11, Woods called the FBI and repeated his concerns, who interviewed him at his home the next morning. Woods believed that he had encountered four of the nineteen terrorists/hijackers that were just on the flight to study it in preparation for the attacks. Woods has been interviewed several times by FBI agents regarding this incident. Woods has confirmed that he looked at pictures of the hijackers and has identified two terrorists as being among the men that he had seen on his flight.
Filmography
Television
Video games
Awards and nominations
References
External links
- James Woods at the Internet Movie Database
- James Woods at the Internet Broadway Database
- James Woods on Twitter
- James Woods at Emmys.com